Collisions of Dangerous Minds
by LSgrimm91
Summary: A brief encounter with Sam during the Gulf War leave Jack's ears ringing. Literally.  "I take it you're Lieutenant Carter?"  S/J Pre-series and SG-1 Pilot


**A/Ramble: A diddy while taking a breather on another story. Pre-series, possibly AU (who knows) S/J encounter during the Gulf War; playing on the introduction "I take it you're Colonel O'Neill." (She hit him!) An unusual title but I'm not listening to my **_**usual **_**taste of music. Heavy metal *cringes* Please excuse any incorrect jargon. I'm not Special Forces. Although, IMHO, I don't think it's **_**that **_**heinous. Fixed the numbers problem. Hey, I failed senior maths first time round, okay! Please, Enjoy!**

~ Collisions of Dangerous Minds ~

_2304h  
>3rd January, 1991<br>Undisclosed location, Middle East_

"How many in the crew?" Jack yanked the black fingerless glove onto his hand until it sat snugly around his fingers. The Armoured Personnel Carrier rocked and bounced but he'd been long acclimatised to its dizzying effects. He lifted his right knee up with a push on his toes to keep his rifle from falling to the rubber-matted floor when they jumped a particularly large crest.

His second-in-command, Captain Shane Wickham, pulled the pen from between his teeth and drew on their map. "Six, plus six passengers; all Air Force. The last thing comms heard was an emergency call and that they were trying to belly-land down here." He pointed to a broad mountain ridge, illuminating the page with the red filtered torch attached to his vest. "Standard sweep going straight from the crash site and fan out up the mountain until we hit... maybe... five hundred feet. Then we move out and go down in an extended line until we find 'em."

"Easy."

Jack pulled the magazine from his rifle for the fourth time, checking to see if it was full and clean. Like the last three times: it was. He'd been in a foul mood all day; he was due to ship out tomorrow, but thanks to this last minute recovery and rescue mission to find an aircrew that had gone down - ironically, when _they _were heading back to the US - he was now being held over for another week. His first bit of joy would come in hunting down the missing crew and then they'd have to secure the aircraft while they waited for the trucks to come out and pick up the cargo.

"Small batch heading out." He observed, pulling his sleeve back to check the time. Normally aircraft took full loads when travelling in and out of combat zones. Only eight passengers on board seemed a little unusual.

"Heading straight to the pentagon, most of 'em." Wickham grunted with his southern accent, mixed with the occasional sounds of the gum being chewed in his mouth. He was always chewing something.

"Ah, first class ticket holders."

"Unlike us humble economy travellers."

"I hear that. These VIP's got names?" He knew the names and ranks of the six crew members, but not the passengers.

"Yeah, hang on..." Wickham pulled his field notebook from his shirt pocket and flipped it open, searching the pages until he found the page with the basic information which he'd scrawled in his own version of shorthand for the sake of security. "...Captains Ivanovo and Fuller, Colonel Graves, Tech Sergeant Lindner, Lieutenant Carter and Major Wallace."

"Ivanovo, Fuller, Graves, Linder-"

"Lind_ner_."

"_Lindner_, Wallace and...?"

"Carter."

"And Lieutenant Carter. How could I forget?"

They were only a few minutes out of their drop off point, so it was time to ready the men. Although Wickham was Jack's second on this mission, both were commanders of their own teams. Two units had to be sent out to cover as much area as possible, so Jack - thanks to his eagles - was responsible for both units until they split up and separately covered the surrounding areas of the crash site.

"Four clicks to the site from here."

"Great," Jack grumbled, zipping up his tactical vest. "What do you reckon they'd say if I told them I didn't feel like running?"

The APC came to a skidded halt and the inside of the cabin became heavily crowded with hunched over bodies preparing to deploy once the back doors opened.

"Sorry Sir, my mama taught me not to use those words."

The doors opened and the two teams gushed out like water onto the parched sands. Jack gave Wickham a friendly shove forwards.

"Hurry up, you redneck..."

They jogged in two single files along a dirt track for the first three kilometres, then broke off and moved west towards the crash site. When they arrived they were relieved to see the aircraft mostly intact, aside from the underside of the fuselage of course. If they had the resources, the aircraft would be quite salvageable. There was, however, evidence of a fire inside the main hold and there were signs of extinguishing agents. All the emergency doors had been opened and two separate blood stains; one at the back of the hold, and one on the left wall above a seat.

But as Jack well knew, where there was good luck, it was usually balanced with the bad. The crew and its live cargo were nowhere to be found; after their steady, but hastened, jog to the site, they were now faced with a climb up a mountain.

What joy was his.

He sighed and exchanged a look with Wickham, which was relayed mostly through silence and eye contact, given their balaclavas to protect their faces from the harsh, cold desert winds.

He signalled the teams to fan out and pointed up the hill. He was sure he could hear his men's internal groans of protest... or maybe it was his. Regardless, they took to the steep slope with vigour.

Almost an hour into the search, the radio in Jack's ear crackled to life.

"O'Neill, we've found ten..."Jack didn't need any more information and knew how little needed to be given over their unsecured radio transmissions, "...Fuller and Carter are still MIA."

Jack pivoted on his heel as he knelt down beside a tree, taking a moment to lean against it. "Roger that."

"The crew escaped the fire and left Fuller and Carter behind. We checked the site; no DOA."

So Carter and Fuller put out the fire and were still out here somewhere. "Hang tight, we'll go get them." He directed his communication to his own unit. "Bravo, move back to the site."

Jack began the rocky descent to the crash site, meeting up with most of his team at the bottom of the mountain. They six-man-team assembled in a tight group in a thicket approximately one hundred and forty feet from the site.

"Fan out three sixty around the site as far as two clicks. Go left one click then move back in. One of both may be injured and armed. Any questions?" When his request was met with silence, Jack rose and set out along the base of the ridge, his men duplicating his action in their own direction. No way was he going up that damn thing again.

He'd almost made it two kilometres when he found a set of tracks resembling the standard issue combat boot tread. It didn't look like a natural gait, so it was easy to follow. Eventually he found a man in Battle Dress Uniform, propped up against a tree with a bloodied bandage around his head, nine mil pistol pointed straight in Jack's direction.

"Whoa... Ease up. Colonel Jack O'Neill; Special Forces."

The man lowered his gun with a heavy sigh of relief. "About damn time. Captain Tim Fuller; nice to see ya, Sir."

"You too, Captain. Don't s'pose you know what happened to Lieutenant Carter, do you?"

Fuller pointed behind Jack. "Broke my leg when a container hit me during the landing. Woke up with Carter and the plane was on fire. Lieutenant Carter went back that way... gonna go find the others or a first aid kit."

"How long ago?"

"Five minutes... if that."

"Oh, for crying out loud..." Jack growled looking back down the trail he'd just come from. That's the second time he'd missed this guy! "Alright. I'll radio the other team and the rest of mine to assemble here." He stepped away to order everyone to join him two clicks west of the crash site. He didn't need to give them exact coordinates; as long as he gave them a rough idea of Fuller's location, they'd find him.

"I'll go find Carter..." he mumbled as he headed back towards the sight.

He was only four minutes into his walk when he heard a twig snap to his left. He froze and carefully lifted his weapon in the direction of the sound. Something wasn't right. He squinted, lifted his night-vision goggles and scanned the area, thankful it was a full moon tonight.

He whispered into the silent, scarce bushland. " Lieutenant Car-"

_WHACK!_

How dare someone sneak up behind him and hit him over the head! He heard the heavy object whoosh through the air and everything. He just didn't expect anyone to _be able to _creep up behind him. He grabbed the side of his head and fell to his knees, his ear ringing loudly.

"God... DAMNIT!" He fell onto his back and could vaguely make out a USAF Lieutenant in BDU and face covered with a cap and khaki cloth - there were two in his vision - towering over him. "Colonel O'Neill! Special _damn _Forces!"

The Lieutenant dropped the... whatever the bloody thing was, and stepped back. A wise decision given his flaring temper.

Worse, the assailing Officer had the audacity to say: "Oops."

When the ringing stopped and the blinding pain in his head settled to a throb, Jack carefully rose to his feet, still holding his head.

"I take it you're Lieutenant Carter?" he growled very pointedly at his attacker.

"Yes, Sir," the Lieutenant replied meekly. Damn right you should be sorry. Hang on...

"Wait a minute... you're a woman?"

He needed to pay more attention to his briefings.

"As far as I'm aware, Colonel."

Was that sarcasm he just heard? It better not be...

"Peachy... Get smacked out by a girl."

He regretted saying it as soon as it had been said, but Carter said nothing. It didn't matter because the arrival of two members of his team relieved him of the woman. He just wanted to go off and feel sorry for himself. A week in this hellhole with a head ache: what a wonderful idea.

~ SJ ~

_Six years later_,

"Carter?" Jack inquired before he got the chance to sit down. He knew a few Carter's during his long career in the Air Force, maybe this would be someone he knew.

"I'm assigning Sam Carter to this mission," the General advised him bluntly from his seat at the head of the table.

"I'd prefer to put together my own team, Sir." They asked _him _to come back; he should put together his own team. He knew his rank and where he sat in regard to this new General, but Jack still felt like his toes were being stepped on by having a new guy thrown into the mix.

"Not on this mission. Sorry..." Well that was a good start; an apology. "Carter's our expert on the Stargate."

An expert? He might come in handy then. Fine. Jack had taken a civilian on the first mission offworld; surely a trained man would be easier.

"Where's he transferring from?" He leaned over to sign the nondisclosure agreement in front of him. Carter? Why did he have a feeling about that name? It certainly wasn't a good feeling, he could tell you that.

"_She _is transferring from the pentagon."

Oh god no.

_"And Lieutenant Carter. How could I forget?"_

_"I'll go find Carter..."_

_A huge whack to the head... two, maybe three people dancing in front of his blurred vision._

_"I take it you're Lieutenant Carter?"_

_"Wait a minute... you're a woman?"_

_"Peachy... Get smacked out by a girl."_

Please, Lord, don't let her remember me. The clickety-clack of her heels - high heels! - And the feminine sway of her hips. Yep, definitely a woman.

"I take it you're Colonel O'Neill..."

She remembers... Ah crap.

~ SJ ~

**And so endeth this buzzing piece of nagging in my mind. "My mumma taught me to share," so I hope you liked this. Yes, MYOTOS is coming, but it's a very long chapter. Et Al fellow South Aussies, join me at Oz ComicCon this weekend in Adelaide! Thanks for reading.**


End file.
